THE HOUSE AT SEA’S END (34 page)

Nelson closes his eyes again. ‘Just kill me now,’ he says.
It was the end of summer. There were crops in some of the fields but no-one to do the harvesting. Some of the volunteers tried to organise teams to cut the hay but no-one really knew what they were doing and, besides, most of the farms had been burnt to the ground.

The hotel became uncomfortable as the weather got colder. At night the wind whistled through the broken glass and Ruth shivered in her thin sleeping bag. She knew she would have to go home soon; the academic year was starting and, in a way, she wanted to go back, to sleep in a proper bed, to watch television, to eat something other than rice and beans. But a far stronger part of her wanted to stay. How can they leave when there are still bodies piled high, waiting to be identified? Every week brought news of a new mass grave. Erik was everywhere, riding in an open truck like Che Guevara, a scarf over his mouth to keep out the dust, spurring the volunteers on, arguing with the officials, handing out mugs of stolen wine to his weary troops, praising, encouraging, sympathising. He always had a special word for each of them. When he saw Ruth, his ice-blue eyes would soften and he’d say, ‘What would I do without my Ruthie?’ And Ruth, cold, exhausted, sickened by the suffering that she saw every day, would glow in the warmth of his approval.

Tatjana grew very quiet as summer turned to autumn. Sometimes Ruth thought that she had given up hope of finding Jacob. But she still cried every night and, when people came from the south, she still questioned them. Only now it seemed as if she did not expect to get any answers.

In late September a small group, including Ruth and Tatjana, travelled to a town near Mostar, the capital of the new Herzegovina. There were rumours of a grave near a large refugee camp. Children from the camp had apparently been found playing with human bones.

It was Ruth’s first sight of one of these notorious camps, and as their truck moved slowly though the line of tents, children running excitedly after them, she was relieved that it wasn’t as awful as she’d feared. There was order, a Red Cross van handing out food, even some attempts at normal life: a group of boys playing football, women hanging out clothes, children playing in a stream.

Next to her, Tatjana was rigid with tension. When one of the children jumped on the side of the truck, she screamed.

‘What’s the matter?’ asked Ruth.

‘Nothing.’

On a hillside to the north of the camp they found their first bones. Heavy rainfall had dislodged the earth and human bones were indeed lying in the open and even floating in the stream that bordered the camp. For three days the archaeologists sorted and catalogued and attempted to identify. This was farmland and there were animal bones mixed in with the human, but all the evidence pointed to a massacre – men, women and children, their bodies thrown into a shallow pit.

As the days went by Tatjana became more and more withdrawn. She worked efficiently enough but in the evenings she sat on her own, wrapped in her coat, apparently deep in thought.

Then, on the fourth day, Ivan, their driver, came bursting into their camp with the news that a group of rebel Serbs were in the area. They had apparently burnt the church and were on their way to the refugee camp. As he spoke they watched the smoke rise up above the trees, a dark cloud in the evening sky.

Ruth remembers that she had never felt more frightened in her life. She had lived for twenty-five years without ever once experiencing physical danger. She wasn’t really one for extreme sports; the nearest she had come to death was probably eating a dodgy kebab from Bilal’s All Night Burger Stall. And now, a band of deadly ruffians was on its way – people who would not baulk at the murder of civilians. She remembers that she had actually been sick, dry-retching at the back of the tents, while Erik and the others packed their gear into the truck.

Erik had been calmness itself. Even now Ruth feels a twinge of vicarious pride as she remembers how Erik had insisted on going down to the refugee camp. ‘Who knows, our presence there may save lives. We are connected to the International Aid Effort, after all. They can hardly kill us all in cold blood.’

Ivan had clutched his arm, his normally ruddy face white with terror.

‘You don’t understand, Professor Anderssen. It’s …’ And he said a Serbian name which meant nothing to Ruth.

But it obviously meant something to Tatjana. She stepped forward out of the shadows and started questioning Ivan in Bosnian. Ruth remembers that Ivan had grown more and more desperate as he confronted Tatjana.
It was as though whatever he had seen in the burning village was not as terrifying as this small, dark-haired woman.

All night they waited at the camp. Erik told them to make a fire. ‘Throughout the ages, it’s always been the same. Fire comforts us and it warns our enemies. It is both the flame of the hearth and the white heat of battle.’ So they had gathered around Erik’s bonfire, as close to the flames as they dared. First it was just the archaeologists then, slowly, the refugees began to join them, so that the circles around the fire expanded like ripples on a pond. Everyone, it seemed, wanted to get close to the hearth that night.

Except Tatjana. Early on, Ruth realised that she was missing but she had been scared to leave Erik and the comfort of the fire. Then, as the night drew on, Ruth knew that she had to find her friend. She went back to the archaeologists’ tents on the edge of the hillside and found Tatjana getting into the truck, a petrified Ivan beside her and a gun in her hand.

‘Tatjana! What are you doing?’

‘Stay out of this, Ruth,’ said Tatjana, pale but very calm. ‘It’s nothing to do with you.’

‘What are you doing with that gun? What’s happening?’ And, eventually, Tatjana had told her. She had recognised the name of the rebel leader. It was the man who had killed Jacob.

‘What are you going to do?’

But she knew.

‘I’m going to kill him,’ Tatjana had said calmly.

There was that look in her eyes again. That burning intensity, painful to witness.

‘I have to do this, Ruth. Don’t stop me.’

And so Ruth hadn’t stopped her. She hadn’t known what to say to her friend – had not been able to find the words of reason, of understanding, of comfort. So she had let Tatjana go. And when she heard in the morning that the rebel leader was dead, shot while he slept, she had known that she had failed.

She still feels that she failed. But now she understands. She understands only too well.

May

Kate must be getting heavier, thinks Ruth. It’s been quite a strain to hold her throughout the short service and now, at the end, people seem to want to take endless photographs. Her arms ache as she hoists her daughter higher in her arms.

‘Hold her up, Ruth. That’s it. Just a bit more. Smile, Kate!’

Ruth’s face aches too, as she tries to maintain a sunny, maternal expression. She still doesn’t know why she let Nelson talk her into this. Ever since Craig’s arrest and his own near-drowning, Nelson has been obsessed with the idea that Kate should be christened in a Catholic church.

‘But, Nelson,’ Ruth had protested, ‘I don’t believe in any of that stuff. The body and blood, the saints, life after death.’

‘You didn’t believe in Cathbad’s rubbish either but you still went ahead with the naming day. What’s the difference?’

Ruth can think of several differences (she couldn’t be accused of holding the naming day ceremony just to get
Kate into a pagan primary school, for example) but, in the end, she gave in. Nelson has been uncharacteristically depressed after the events at Broughton Sea’s End. Maybe it was the fact that he hadn’t been able to save Ruth or maybe it is just the realisation that he owes his life to Clough, but Nelson has been anxious and ill-at-ease. He rings Ruth several times a day to check on Kate and nags her continually about the baby’s welfare.

‘I’m doing this on my own, Nelson. We agreed. Remember?’

But, in the end, the deciding factor for Ruth was that, if she made Nelson and Michelle godparents, they could have a formal role in Kate’s life. When it comes down to it, she is slightly scared of doing the whole thing on her own. Those terrible moments in the water when she saw not her own life, but Kate’s, unfold in front of her, made her realise that it was dangerous for Kate’s welfare to depend so entirely on one person. She is not particularly scared of dying but she is terrified of leaving Kate on her own. So she agreed to have Kate baptised into the Catholic Church, only making the stipulation that Father Hennessey should come from Sussex to perform the service. She has also made a will, naming Nelson and Michelle as Kate’s guardians in the event of her death. She doesn’t feel any qualms about leaving Kate in Michelle’s care. She’s a good mother and, this way, Kate will be able to be brought up with her half-sisters. Far better than a sterile existence with Ruth’s parents in South London.

Nelson explained to Michelle that Ruth had been brought up a Catholic and had decided on the christening ‘just to be on the safe side, belt and braces job’. Michelle had accepted this without question. She is spectacularly uninterested in
religion and has never questioned Nelson’s decision to have their children baptised as Catholics. If you have to be something, why not Catholic? That’s her view. At least you can dress girls beautifully for their First Holy Communion.

Michelle herself is dressed beautifully today. She is wearing a pink flowered dress and beaded cardigan. Ruth, in dark trousers and a white shirt, feels distinctly outclassed. At least Cathbad, complete with cloak, evens things up a bit. Ruth decided that it would just be too weird to have only Nelson and Michelle as godparents, so she has asked Cathbad and Shona as well. The more the merrier. And, as Father Hennessey pointed out, three of the four are actually baptised Catholics.

‘I’m not exactly a practising Catholic,’ said Cathbad, with modest understatement.

‘Oh you can never get away from the Catholic church,’ smiled Father Hennessey. ‘You be a devil worshipper if you like, you’ll still be a lapsed Catholic to us.’

Tatjana had called Cathbad a devil worshipper, Ruth remembers. She never worked out whether this was a joke or not. She does know, though, that Tatjana has moved a long way from the Catholicism of her childhood. The night after Tatjana came to Ruth’s rescue on the beach, appearing on the sea wall like one of the Norse water spirits so beloved of Erik, they had sat up late into the night, talking. Tatjana told Ruth that, in her quest to come to terms with Jacob’s death, she had run the gamut of spirituality.

‘I’ve tried them all – past life regression, séances, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, I even belonged to some made-up
church called The Fellowship of The Fisherman. Rick was very good about it. He wanted us to have our own kids but I couldn’t bear to. I didn’t want a child. I wanted Jacob. If anything happened to Kate, having another child wouldn’t make you forget her, would it?’

‘No,’ said Ruth, touching wood surreptitiously.

‘I wanted to get in touch with my little boy again but, of course, it was impossible. Oh, I had all those so-called mediums saying, “I’ve got a little boy here asking for his mummy.” Complete frauds, the lot of them. Not that I wasn’t taken in for a while, but Rick helped me to see what charlatans they were. They pick up on your grief and they feed off it, like vampires. No, the only thing that helped was finally finding his grave. Erik was right about that, you know. We need to see the burial place. It’s a fundamental human requirement.’

‘So you did find it.’

‘Yes. I met this wonderful woman, Eva Klonowski, who runs the International Commission on Missing Persons. She’s a forensic archaeologist and she’s been in Bosnia since the Nineties. She helped me. They’re using all sorts of new technologies there, you know – satellite imagery and spectral analysis – and they’re still finding bones all the time. We found a grave that looked like it might be in the right place and from the right time. The bodies had been moved several times but Eva helped me get DNA testing done. They don’t fund it, you see, except in special circumstances. The tests proved that it was Jacob and my parents. I buried my parents there, on the hillside, but I had Jacob’s bones cremated and I brought them home with me. Do you think that’s weird?’

‘No.’

‘I’m glad, because those ashes are my greatest comfort. I keep them in a casket on my bedside table at home and I’ve even got some in here.’ She touched the gold locket around her neck. ‘You understand, don’t you?’

Yes, Ruth did understand. She now has an insight into the ferocious world of motherhood. She thought that this was the first time she had spoken to Tatjana, really spoken to her, since the day in the pine forest. She was glad to have her friend back, to have salvaged something from the wreckage of Bosnia. But the next day Tatjana had left to go back to America and Ruth does not know if she will ever see her again.

So, Tatjana is not among the small group gathered in the characterless modern church of St Peter and St Paul. Judy isn’t there either; she is on her honeymoon. A week ago, Ruth attended her wedding, an elaborate affair in a far grander church. Judy had looked beautiful, her round-faced prettiness transformed into something quite spectacular. Her colleagues had formed a guard of honour outside the church and there had been the obligatory jokes about stop-and-search, truncheons and handcuffs.

Ruth didn’t have much chance to talk to Judy. The reception, in a four-star hotel, was packed and she was stuck with Judy’s colleagues from the station. Nelson was there, with Michelle, but he was on a more important table. He looked fed up, fiddling with his tie and glowering at the jokes about the police force. Michelle, of course, looked gorgeous in exactly the right kind of hat.

After the meal there was a disco. Ruth dutifully danced
with the policewomen, who had commandeered the dance floor. She even managed an embarrassed shuffle with Clough (Trace having refused to dance). But as ‘YMCA’ segued into Kylie, she escaped, looking for some air and a chance to take off her shoes. After trying several doors, all of which seemed to open onto conference rooms, she eventually found French windows leading to a terrace. She had sunk down with relief onto a stone seat but, to her surprise, she wasn’t alone. Judy was there, looking out over the landscaped grounds, mysterious in the moonlight.